On Hill, video game violence not in play

In the wake of the Washington Navy Yard shooting, cable news hosts quickly homed in on the shooter’s obsession with playing military-style online games, repeatedly asking whether it was a factor in the mass shootings.

But that line of questioning was all but missing last week on Capitol Hill, where hardly a word was uttered about video game violence. Instead, Democratic lawmakers and anti-gun groups focused their efforts on the push for a vote on background checks legislation. It was a stark contrast from previous shooting tragedies and a clear sign of the investment video game companies have made in making friends in Washington.

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“I think you are going to have crazy people no matter what. The same argument was made when movies were invented, same with comic books, same argument that comic books are going to cause violence,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) told POLITICO. “I think people like to assign blame for something. Otherwise, it’s hard to make it fit in their mind of why someone would do this. Sometimes I think bad things just happen.”

When asked about the connection between gaming and mass shootings, other lawmakers pivoted to talk about mental health, background checks for buying guns and how government contractors obtain security clearance.

“The culprit is people aren’t getting either the help they need and then when they try to get help, there is not a good reporting requirement,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said, speaking to mental health issues when asked about the relation between video game violence and violent acts like at the Navy Yard. She also said she supported background checks legislation and that security at schools should be addressed.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who has sponsored a bill calling for a study on violent video games, also came out with a fairly muted response following the Navy Yard shootings that left 13, including the shooter, Aaron Alexis, dead.

“We need to give the FBI time to complete their profile of the shooter and the investigation into the horrific event that occurred yesterday at the Navy Yard,” Rockefeller said. “We’ve heard some news accounts that the shooter spent time playing violent video games, but it is simply too early to know whether this motivated this week’s senseless act of violence.”

Following the Newtown, Conn., shootings that left 26 dead, the National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre pointed a finger at violence in media and the gaming industry as playing a role, projecting a segment of the violent video game Kindergarten Killer during a high-profile news conference. At the same time, lawmakers like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) opened the door for possible action to regulate the industry, and Vice President Joe Biden investigated whether violent media culture should be addressed and the nation’s gun laws strengthened.

But that tragedy came and went without any meaningful push to curb violence in the media or gaming industry.

The absence of vocal calls for restricting video game violence after the Navy Yard incident was even more striking since the mass shootings occurred the same week that Grand Theft Auto V — one of the most violent video games ever — was released.

In part, industry watchers say the silence is based on gun control advocates’ belief that background checks legislation has the best chance of becoming law. It also reflects the fact that previous efforts to curb video game violence have fallen flat, most recently in a Supreme Court decision in 2011 that rejected a ban on selling video games to minors in California. Since the ruling, critics of violent video games acknowledge that it’s an uphill climb to get any legislation passed — saying they are now more focused on the rating system.